The Guild: Blackjack Dungeon Crawl (Apprentice Edition)

While Functionally Identical to the "Guildmaster Edition," this Version will require you to provide your own playing cards, dice, and counters!!!

Note: You can always purchase an Upgrade Kit to get these optional pieces at a later time.

The entire premise behind 'The Guild' is to be able to compact a basic party-based RPG experience into a fairly portable and easily set up package. While the players are racing against one another to become the Guildmaster, they will need to work together to defeat an evil Overlord--behind hordes of Minions.

The game itself consists primarily of a number of "Encounter Cards" sorted into Blue for Basic and Red for Elite (to ensure balanced story progression). A Boss is selected for the bottom of the deck, then a number of Reds are placed on top at random, with the additional Blues on top of that. As the players work through the deck they may encounter Monsters, Traps, and/or Events which they must resolve before returning to Town.

Combat consists of players taking turns either placing a card from their hand or drawing one at random towards a shared collection of suits and values. Each Monsters' Defenses prescribes a minimum numerical total a player must obtain to deal damage. Careful, however, not to exceed 21! Any player who busts allows their enemy to swing on them--unless they can generate enough Defense to make up the difference!

Certain Suits allow players to make use of various abilities... but they might also affect how an enemy interacts with them. This can lead to some pretty interesting strategies as players have to balance the party's needs with their own. Example: Diamonds represent "Discipline & Determination," making them critical for taking advantage of heavy armor and/or resisting things like Fear. However, without Hearts for "Strength & Aggression" most players won't be able to deal much damage.

To help keep people from over-analyzing the game (and to ensure a good bit of chance is involved) Players are not allowed to discuss the specifics of cards they have in hand. They may only discuss the Suit(s) they have and whether they're "Low," "Medium," or "High" in value. Since the deck is shuffled between Encounters--and players may not search the discard pile--it can be pretty common to forget if both Jokers have been played, or just one...

Each class can also be equipped in a variety of ways that change their game-play experience. Since players may use any number of abilities they meet the listed requirements for (i.e. suits are not 'spent') focusing heavily on one suit may seem like a good idea. However, if the party draws all of that suit early in the Encounter they may wind up fairly helpless for several rounds...